


Family Secrets

by starhawk2005



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Drabble, Gen, Gen Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-09
Updated: 2012-09-09
Packaged: 2017-11-13 20:37:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/507490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starhawk2005/pseuds/starhawk2005
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John and Mary have both forgotten, lulled by the domesticity of their current lives.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Family Secrets

The first time John finds a salt line laid across the windowsill of one of their apartment windows, he thinks it’s some kind of prank. He grins to himself, plotting to short-sheet their bed for Mary’s afternoon nap, or something.

But when he asks her about it later, a strange expression crosses her face. With a deadly serious expression, she tells him it’s a family superstition, and if he doesn’t mind, could he just let her do it, no matter how odd it seems to him?

Well, that shuts any humour over the situation right down for John. He still doesn’t know exactly how Mary’s parents died – she’s never really been willing to discuss it, and John’s too much of a gentleman to push – but he does know how painful it is for her, even years later, so if laying a condiment across a windowsill helps her cope, he’s all for it. She’s perfect for him in nearly every way, so why make a big deal about a little thing like this?

Maybe he’d be more concerned if he’d come across Mary’s stash of knives, sharpened in a way that her kitchen knives will never experience, or the runes scribbled in white chalk under the welcome mat outside their door, but he doesn’t find these, so he doesn’t trouble himself over them. When they finally can afford to move to a real house, Mary brings all these things with her, but John still never finds out, and he’s too used to the salt lines by now to comment when they make their inevitable appearance.

When Dean is born, however, things start to change. Mary’s home with Dean, of course, while John pulls extra shifts at the garage to make ends meet. But Dean’s a demanding baby, colicky and crying at all hours, and Mary’s already run ragged and exhausted a week after Dean’s born.

That’s when John first starts to notice the breaks in Mary’s salt-lines. She’s probably too tired and run off her feet by Dean to maintain them. Or maybe she’s finally letting go of her parents and the terrible thing that happened to them. Either way, John doesn’t think anything of it. He doesn’t know what’s out there in the dark, waiting to claim the next son they conceive, so he doesn’t bother to repair the broken lines of protection, or even to mention the state of the lines to his wife.

By the time Sam comes along, Dean and Sam have become Mary’s whole life, and indeed, if John asked her, he’d find that she’s pretty much forgotten completely about salt lines, that the case of knives is buried under a pile of boxes containing baby clothes and broken toys, and that the runes that used to be under the porch welcome mat have long since been rubbed out through natural wear and tear. There’s no time for all that sort of thing, not with Mary taking care of one rambunctious son, as well as the new baby, though Sammy is a much calmer and easier baby than Dean ever was. It’s like night and day, the difference between them.

John and Mary have both forgotten, lulled by the domesticity of their current lives….at least until a certain night. A night of fire and terror, Mary screaming and then pinned dying to the ceiling like an insect. When it’s all over, John wonders if those strange things Mary had done, had been because of _this_. He wonders if maybe he should’ve pushed her harder, to tell him what really happened to her parents. 

And he wonders if he is somehow to blame in all of this. That he could’ve prevented it.


End file.
